Patient navigation program was first developed by Dr. Harold Freeman in New York in 1990 in order to decrease the mortality rates of the poor and black women with breast cancer at the 3rd and the 4th stages. Over time, the program has focused to remove the financial, logistics and sociocultural obstacles in the treatment. Patient navigation can be defined as a management program, which is specific to cultural values and which can be used as a map or a navigator by the patients, who are surrounded by the complex and dissociated health information system. The navigator program is used today due to the problems created by factors such as race, ethnic, gender or political discrimination, low socio-economic level, absence of social insurance, distance to the health services or illiteracy.
The patient navigation program lays a bridge between the patients and the health system. Patient navigators, who receive intensive training, reach to the patients, support the patients, start and continue nursing and treatment and hold the medical records. The patient navigation program is the key for the under privileged patients with oncologic or chronic diseases to receive health services.
Keywords: Navigation, navigator, nursing, patient